Three and in – not just another football blog

DATELINE: December 2019

Breaking news: There was shock and outrage today as it was announced that the 2030 World Cup is to be held in outer space.

After a series of bids and presentations FIFA executives voted to hold the tournament on oil rich Mars which was colonised just 8 months ago. As yet there isn’t a single football stadium on the Dubai/Texas owned planet but architects drawings and some sincere sounding promises from men in robes and cowboy hats were enough to convince Sepp Blatter and his henchmen.

FIFA say fans will love the atmosphere

“This is a momentous day for the sport”, said Blatter, rolling around a gilded bed, gently fingering one of the four naked women provided to him by the Mars delegation. “For years we’ve dreamed of taking football to another planet and finally it’s happened”.

FIFA have rejected claims from the unsuccessful countries that the World Cup will be inaccessbile to fans saying that they have personally developed a safe method of interplanetary travel and packages would be available from all FIFA approved travel agents.

“WTF?!”, twittered England’s bid ambassador Rio Ferdinand, “Sum 1 needs 2 bitch slap Blatter”, while King David and Queen Victoria were said to be ‘not amused’ by the decision.

However, one leading sports analyst said that such a move was inevitable. Peregrine Groves, of Groves, Caesar and Woodcock, said”Look, the minute they started doing stupid stuff like having tennis matches on the top of skyscrapers we were moving into this kind of territory. And the Qatar decision only aided this. If you can have a World Cup in a desert then Mars is not really such a stretch. At least you can have a beer on the red planet”.

FIFA has long been dogged with accusations of corruption and lack of transparency. The decision to retrospectively award the 1966 World Cup to Germany after technology proved that Geoff Hurst’s shot didn’t cross the line caused great controversy in 2017 while debate still rages as to why video replays still can’t be used when it is clear Platini’s ‘One ref per player’ scheme has caused more harm than good.

In a sensational twist today the footballing world was rocked to it’s foundations.

One time Rangers fullback, now Tottenham Hotspur striker Alan Hutton, has today been revealed as the man at the center of an nationwide smuggling cartel of what sources are simply calling. ‘The White Stuff’.

Hutton is no stranger to controversy of course. The Scot hit the the headlines off the park not long after he joined Spurs when he went for a quiet all day drinky poo bender with some family and friends in London. This soiree climaxed with Hutton battering the living monkey out of his old man in broad daylight.

This time though the consequences are likely to be somewhat more significant than merely leaving his dad needing medical attention. Experts told us that the cost of valeting his passion wagon could run into tens of pounds. The Metropolitan Police declined to comment.

The Premier League is about to get some swagger back. Yesterday, Aston Villa assistant manager Gary McAllister confirmed that Gerard Houllier is in talks with Robert Pires about a return to English football.

“Robert has been training at Arsenal.

I know the boss and Arsene Wenger are very friendly and I believe he’s spoken to him.

It would be perfect. I am sure he would arrive at the training ground in good condition.

He’s a player everyone would look up to because of what he has achieved.”

There aren’t many 37-year olds strutting their stuff in the Premier League, but Pires has the ability to counteract his increasing physiological limitations. His performances in his first spell in the Premier League were quite incredible, and class like that never fades altogether.

A succession of knee problems forced Pires to adapt his game in the more temperate climes of La Liga. He went from a lightening fast winger and goalscorer to creator and keep-ball merchant.

That, judging from Saturday’s match with Man U, is exactly what Villa need. They have plenty of exciting young talent: Barry Bannan, Marc Albrighton and Jonathan Hogg all began the game. But it’s that inexperience which cost them three points. Albrighton repeteadly sought to drive to the byline and cross, when turning back inside and finding a team-mate may have been the more sensible choice. Pires has the experience, cool-head, and passing ability to make that difference.

Just think, too, what Villa’s more senior players could learn from a true Premier League great. Robin van Persie has spoken effusively many times of how watching Pires train improved his game. Imagine what the same could do for Ashley Young: like Pires, a right-footed left-winger or support striker.

And finally, the clincher: it was at Villa Park that Pires helped Andy Gray coin his now trademark ‘Tek a boo, son’, with this, arguably his finest moment in an Arsenal shirt:

Tek a boo, indeed. The Premier League will get to say goodbye to one of its great entertainers – and an Invincible Champion, no less.
If a deal can be done in the next next week or so, Pires could be in line to be a part of the Villa squad on Saturday 27th. Their opponents at Villa Park that day? Arsenal. You couldn’t make it up.

As the last post was about Chris Foy and his occasional blindness, it got me thinking about terrible refereeing decisions. Not the ones that happen to the team you support. I mean the ones you have experienced personally.

Whether it’s high-level amateur football, Tuesday night astro league or Sunday league, when 22 barely sober men clomp around a mud-laden swamp playing something that vaguely looks like football, there’s always one ref or one incident you always remember.

Here’s mine. It’s a game against a team of entirely Chinese players. I have no idea what they were called but given the conventions of Astro League it was probably something like The Hong Kong Phooeys. Or Maochester United.

So we’re 2-0 up in the first half, the ball is played into one of our strikers in the box who is shielding the ball from the defender. Another defender comes across and elbows him straight in the side of the head. Naturally enough he falls down because being elbowed in the side of the head hurts, quite a bit.

Everyone has seen it and stops waiting for the award of the penalty and the red card. We’ve stopped and are ensuring the ref knows what just happened even though he saw it. And they’ve stopped because they know the ref has seen it.

“Play on!”, he shouts.

“What?! Ref, are you mad? REF! REEFFF!”, we screech calmly.

Play goes on. Our forward eventually gets up and continues. The game gets to half-time and as we’re walking off he calls me over as the captain of the team.

“Now”, he says, “I want you to speak to you about that incident”.

“I would very much like to hear what you have to say”, I reply.

“I saw what happened”, he says, “but I was so shocked by it I just didn’t know what to do”.

“I’m no ref, Ref, but what you do in those circumstances is generally give us a penalty and then send off the bloke who has elbowed our player in the head”.

“I know”, he says, “but sure you were 2-0 up at the time and I felt a bit sorry for them”.

“Never, ever speak to me again”.

True as anything. We went on to win about 5-0 and our striker had a headache for a couple of days. Understandably, having been viciously elbowed in it in plain view of the ‘referee’. In all my years of playing football that’s the worst decision I’ve ever been on the end of.

“I was so shocked by it I didn’t know what to do”.

So, come on then, beat that. I want your terrible referee stories from games you’ve played in. There must be a million of them.

Maybe it’s just me, and most times when I say that it is just me, but don’t footballers celebrate goals rather too much? I don’t mean the extravagant routines some of them foist upon us, nor the ludicrous dancing, but very often they goals they’re celebrating aren’t important or it’s too early in a game to gauge whether they’re important or not.

If you score an absolute beauty then fair enough, I can understand you going a bit mental, but a simple tap-in in the opening stages of a game should not result in the kind of celebration that makes people think you’ve just scored the winner in the World Cup final. There’s still so much time left for the opposition to stick five past you.

I believe a new law should be passed which would require anyone scoring in the first half of a game to simply give a clenched fist of subdued happiness before making his way purposefully back to his own half. He would be allowed to shake hands, firmly but not extravagantly, with his teammates who may, in turn, slap him on the back to express their satisfaction with the situation.

Any kind of jumping, dancing, hugging, kissing, rocking an invisible baby, piling on, shirt lifting (you heard me), whooping, high pitched yelping or gestures such as asking people to ‘shhhh’ or suggesting to people that you can no longer hear them as you cup your hand to your ear would be punishable by a yellow card.

Only when the game has gone past the hour mark should there be any tolerance of the more flamboyant celebrations. At that stage the goals become more important and so the players should be able to do some on-pitch carousing. Last minute winners should grant the player the right to celebrate however they see fit, up to, and including, french kissing the referee with joy.

It’s time football got its house in order and until someone takes a stand against these premature celebrators we’re going nowhere fast.

Petr Cech flings himself across goal to keep out a stinging Andrey Arshavin effort and give Chelsea the platform for their 2-0 victory.

Not just one for the cameras

For a tough Scotsman from Govan Alex Ferguson is surprisingly sensitive.

He’s cancelled press conferences as he’s unhappy at the way the media portrayed his comments about Fernando Torres after the United Liverpool game. According to the Guardian:

A few newspapers interpreted the comments as an accusation that Torres was cheating and Ferguson does not like that, prompting his withdrawal from all press-conference duties.

What he said was:

I’ve watched it. Definitely, Torres made a meal of it, an absolute meal of it. There’s no doubt he tried to get the player sent off.

He may not have used the word cheating but that’s exactly what he meant. Some might say that he’s well within his rights not to speak to the media if he feels hard done by but he’s hardly been badly misrepresented here.

Other managers find their words twisted much more often and in much more damaging ways yet they still meet the press every week. When you add this to Ferguson’s continued refusal to speak to the BBC United fans will be hoping Sir Alex sets himself up with a Twitter account so they can hear what their manager has to say.

It’s all a bit unseemly and petty from a man who is experienced enough to know better. He’s well able to deal with silly questions from the assembled hacks, it’d be much better to see the United manager take someone to task in the public arena than seemingly hide away.

His comments about Torres held little weight considering the actions of one of his own players on that day, but he’s too experienced and too clever a man to throw a strop like this over something so trivial.

Paul Gascoigne, after a 39-day spell at Kettering that ended with acrimony and accusations of drinking on the job, is to make his return to football management.  His employers, Garforth Town, insist the appointment is not a publicity stunt.

Their claims would have more credence if the owner, Simon Clifford, wasn’t the same man who, back in 2004, signed two middle-aged Brazilians: chain-smoking playmaker-cum-philosopher Socrates, 50 at the time, and 44-year old former Napoli winger Careca.

The aptly-named Clifford argues:

“This is not a publicity stunt. When we signed Socrates and Careca, that was. Everyone says they love Paul but nobody does anything about it.”

What he fails to acknowledge is that anyone who does “love” Paul Gascoigne would never give him a job as a football manager.  The mental strain is, quite frankly, the last thing he needs.

Clifford’s denials are further undermined by Gazza’s own word.  The former England international and friend to rogue gunmen says:

“I will get the same publicity at Garforth as if I was at a Premier League club and I don’t want the players to get carried away with it.”

The players should be fine.  It’s the chairman I’d be most worried about.

No, I’m not talking about him refer, more than once, to David Silva as David Villa until Gary Lineker corrected him. I mean his opinion of the Steven Gerrard elbow on Danny Welbeck.

GIF here – (3mb)

Shearer was critical of the referee’s decision to book the Liverpool captain saying “It’s a red card or it’s it’s nothing”.

Wrong. It’s just a red card. Gerrard led with the elbow, knew fine well what he was doing, and should have gone. Then again, I don’t suppose we can expect Alan Shearer to come straight out and condemn players who are a bit wild with their elbows …

The Arsenal full back captures the mood during their 3-2 defeat to West Brom.

Oh Manuel, what was that?